


Perseverance

by meowgicmage (queerfindings)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angry Sex, F/M, Mage Rebellion, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 09:51:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13633851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerfindings/pseuds/meowgicmage
Summary: Short, not so sweet Modern AU revolving around messed up people in a messed up situation reminding each other of what it's like to feel human.





	Perseverance

“You Chantry boys just kill me,” she sighed, eyes still on the tight sleeves of his shirt. “What a waste.” 

“Chantry b- what does that mean?” Cullen couldn't decide if he was offended by her lumping him in with Sébastien, or flattered by how obviously put-out she was. The pretty redhead certainly knew how to work a pout- and a tank top. 

“You know, the whole ‘above temptations of the flesh’ thing you all subscribe to.” She rolled her eyes and conjured a small flame to light her cigarette. 

“You can't use magic in the open like that!” 

“So arrest me.” She blew a stream of smoke at him and eyed him once more. Cullen pressed his lips together but shook his head. His gaze strayed to the rest of the parking lot. He pulled a cigarette of his own out and motioned her to light it for him. She obliged with an amused slant of her eyes. 

“You're too pretty to be out here alone, someone might take advantage.” Her tone was joking, but there was a certain wariness at the edges of her body. “Begs the question… what are you looking for?”

“I'm not sure,” he muttered. The nicotine burned his lungs pleasantly. He sucked in another punishing breath. She planted her ass against the side of his car. “It's not even that I disagree with the protests, you know. I understand where it all came from. I just can't condone the methods.”

“They're hurting people in the middle.” She stared at the sky and blew a stream of smoke to the heavens. 

“I got a tip I might find the Red Jennies around here tonight.” Cullen watched her closely. “You're different than the reports said.” She shrugged a little. The motion deepened her already considerable cleavage. When she looked down she caught his direction and smirked. 

“You Chantry boys just kill me,” she sighed. She dropped the butt and crushed it under her shoe. “Are you gonna cuff me?” She offered her wrists. Scars striped both arms to the elbow. “I promise whatever you do doesn't hold a candle to the Circles.” Cullen just smoked, and watched her, conflicted. 

“What if I wanted something different?” She cocked her head. One hand splayed against his chest. His back hit the side of the car. Her mouth tasted like smoke and something sweet, Maker it had been so long since a woman kissed him. All he could do was touch the curve of her waist and enjoy it. 

“Is that closer to what you’re after?” 

“Getting warmer.”

“How about now?” Her teeth scraped his collarbone. 

It was a cheap motel, of course the bed creaked. The woman under him seemed intent on drowning it with her own voice. Cullen fucked her into the mattress, hands pinned beside her head. Warm, she was so warm, soft, pliable around him. Her back arched, mouth open, eyes closed. 

“Look at me,” he commanded roughly. Her lids fluttered open. “Look at me,” he growled again. “It's so fucking easy for you! I can't even look at myself anymore.” He doubled his efforts. Her face contorted, riding that edge between pleasure and pain. He pinned one of her legs down and flattened against her to drive his cock into her hard, bruising, bone to bone and it felt so fucking good to sink his teeth into her. She wrapped her limbs around him and bit his shoulder with a feral noise. 

It took full minutes for reality to register around him. He was still on top of her, inside of her, and he couldn't stop shaking. She stroked his back in little circles and held him tight with the other arm. A shaky gasp escaped as he pulled out and rolled to sit on the edge of the bed to put his head in his hands. 

There was the crackle of magic along his conscious. She knelt behind him, breasts against his back, and put an arm around his neck to hold a cigarette to his lips. Her other hand ran through his hair. She soothed the throbbing bite on his shoulder with a kiss. He found himself relaxing back into her. 

“Every woman I've fucked since…” He made a vague gesture at his scarred torso. “Has run screaming the other direction.”

“And miss a good fuck like that?” She let out a snort of quiet laughter and pulled him flat. His head cushioned against her bare thigh. She ran her hands over his torso. Another bout of shivering took him, overstimulation this time. His breath caught every time she ran over a particularly knotted scar. He never wanted her to stop. 

“Mm. Not the worst I've seen,” she finally said. 

“Maker's breath- no.”

“Ever seen what a gallon of boiling water does to skin?” She smoked in silence for a few moments, obviously lost with her own demons. Cullen shifted further onto the bed and she laid beside him willingly enough. They watched strips of lights from cars outside cross the ceiling until he rolled on top of her again. 

When he woke the next morning he was alone in the small room. A scrap of paper lay pinned under his car keys. 

_Next time you need some therapy_

Below that was a phone number. He slipped it in his pocket and headed out the door. 

He called her right after news coverage of the most violent riot yet went live. She met him at the hotel. They barely said two words before he was on her. 

“Fight back!” His hand clamped around her throat. Her eyes widened but she clawed his arms and thrashed and growled. One hand lashed out to catch him across the chest with her nails. 

“Fuck you,” she gasped. She yanked him down and shoved them over to straddle him, riding just as hard as he needed. Her nails dug into him once more. 

She kissed the angry red marks later. He tangled loose fingers through her hair just to feel the softness catch against his skin. Warmth touched his skin, moisture. 

“Why didn't they do something?” She shook her head and took a shaking breath. “I know. I know why and I'm so fucking angry. It's choking me.” Cullen refused the urge to kiss her forehead. She wouldn't allow it and he didn't need the fallout. This arrangement worked. 

He stopped keeping track after the third time. The world was trying to fall apart. Mages set fire to cars, Templars beat back protesters even if they were peaceful. Laws bandied about on a higher level while the streets became increasingly unsafe- not that the politicians were required to notice past the bulletproof glass in their cars. So Cullen called her when the demons clawed their way to the surface, and once or twice she called him to pour out her own fury and helplessness. He hid the marks well at work. 

Cullen always had the sense the quiet part of her was a private side, reserved for people who knew her- even if it was passing. The live bomb that took two Templars to drag into the station proved that theory in leaps and bounds. He was transfixed. She alternated between kicking and going limp to drag them down, covered in dirt and (to his alarm) blood, screaming profanity the whole way. 

“Rutherford!” He blinked. “A little help?” Samson grunted as she kicked his shin again. “Fuck you're- ugh- useless!” He snapped his nightstick out and Cullen’s feet came unglued. He was at the man’s side in a second to catch the coiled blow. 

“Cameras, stupid,” he hissed. No one saw anything on the street, but here the security cameras caught everything. Not that anyone cared anymore. The other Templar sneered and said as much. And then he struck her hard in the belly. She curled over with a little cry, only to come up swinging and spitting lightning. They dropped her to scatter for shields, all except Cullen who dove on top of her. He jammed both arms up behind her back.

“Quit, or they're going to hurt you!” He hissed. 

“And what about you?” She subsided to harsh panting against the tile. He cuffed her and dragged her to her feet. 

“You're a fucking joke,” he snarled at the two on the ground. “You've seen magic before, you've dealt with it for ten years and the minute some little spitfire decides to arc up you drop her like a couple of recruits?” He shoved her forward and when she dropped her feet out from under her he lifted her under one arm. She started up the kicking and cursing again. 

Mateah Elene Trevelyan. Five foot six, a hundred pounds and change. Green eyes, red hair. She had an address listed close to Haven, the slum districts. A sense of wrongness settled over him like an ill-fitting coat. He scowled at the paperwork in front of him. The whole reason this worked was because it was anonymous. They didn't know anything…except for things he hadn't told his therapist, and how brokenly she wept for even the Templars that fell in the street due to radicals on both sides cutting down anyone in their path. But no names. Nothing to identify. And now he had everything.

She was on her knees beside a teenage girl with a broken nose, who broke into fresh hysterics when she saw him on the other side of the bars. The change was instant, and he found himself looking down at a cornered animal ready to bite. She stood and stalked to the front of the cell. He didn't flinch when she banged her fists against the magic proof barrier. A man took her side to link arms, and another, until they spanned the cell. Their fists beat a steady rhythm against the pocked surface. Her eyes never left his. 

“Want me to electrify it?” Samson stood at his side. Always eager for blood. He was one who enjoyed the power imbalance because it was tipped in his favor. And he was only getting more vocal about it. 

“Leave it. What can they do?” 

“That's not the question is it?” Samson murmured with a chuckle. He put a hand in Cullen’s shoulder. Unease slithered up his spine. Suddenly he fought the urge to push the man’s hand away. “It's more a question of what _we_ can do.” He moved away to push a button. The Mages scattered from the cell wall as electricity crackled across the surface. Samson howled with laughter. He strode back to kick the wall. “How's that feel? Since you're all so fucking fond of your little lightning spells.” He wiggled his fingers. Mateah only used one to respond, and his face dropped into a scowl. 

“Samson.” Cullen watched him open the door. Most of them scrambled backward, but not her. He was hardly surprised. The other Templar approached her with the nightstick in his hand once more. “Samson,” Cullen repeated, with steel in his voice. “Step out of the cell.” No response, but no movement either. He went in after him. 

“Hit me,” she whispered, venom and fire in her eyes. “Knock my teeth out, break some bones. Show me what a big man you are, Templar, beating up Mages is what you do isn't it?” 

“You turn her into a martyr she's going straight to the press,” Cullen was in his other ear, a hand on his shoulder to restrain. “They literally can not defend themselves in here and I swear to the Maker if this lands on my desk due to some bleeding heart I am coming down on you with both feet.” Finally, he looked up, and what Cullen could read before it vanished set off alarm bells. 

“Who's talking about bleeding hearts,” he muttered with a scoff as he walked out. Cullen followed after and shut the cell once more. He left them in the dark as he locked the outer door and stalked over to yank Samson around by the collar. He shoved him against the wall, blinded by fury for a hot minute. 

“You will remember who you're speaking to,” he uttered harshly. “I came from Kinloch. No one understands what they're capable of more than me!” He slammed him back when Samson attempted to speak, hard enough to snap his teeth. “But when you're in the station you keep yourself in check, you fucking sociopath. Or we're not any better than the renegades out there who burn shit down right along with the mages. Understand?” 

“Yeah,” he grunted. Cullen let him down and stepped back, only to realize how silent the room was. The other four stared at him. 

“That goes for the rest of you too,” he raised his voice. “You are the face of the Order. Act like it.”

Three weeks passed since the night in the cell. Cullen didn't call her. If she chose, and justifiably so, to vanish, he wasn't going to fault her. 

Something interrupted one of his nightmares. Phone. Where was his phone? He untangled himself from the sheets and fumbled around the nightstand until he found the hateful little device. 

“Motel 6 by the highway. I'm already there.” 

He grunted some sort of assent and hauled himself out of bed to put glasses, clothes, coat on. He stumbled out towards his car. The chill night air felt so nice against his body, he always had a fever now and it frequently left him sweat-slick and foggy. 

She sat on the bed with a cigarette in one hand and a plastic cup of liquor in the other. A small crease appeared between her brows. 

“I didn't know you wore glasses.”

“Headaches,” he mumbled. “Don't bother with contacts except for work.” A sigh heaved through him. “And it's three in the morning.”

“What's your name?” She took a sip, then got up and poured him a glass too. He downed the whole thing in a swallow. Most of the nerves in his throat were dead from lyrium anyway. Warmth bloomed through his core. 

“Cullen Stanton Rutherford.” The ground leveled a little. Silly, to consider knowing each other's middle names as a step in, well, any direction at all. But he did. And the crease between her eyes disappeared. 

“You're the Knight-Captain. I didn't realize. Didn't care either. Don't care, I guess. It's just…interesting. They took you from Kirkwall to here but it followed you didn't it?” Something close to sympathy crept over her face. She looked him up and down.

“More than you know, and you know more than most.” He pulled his shirt over his head. In full light, the scars were just that much worse. He stepped out of his shoes. 

“You're shaking.”

“Withdrawal,” he dismissed it. A little shimmy and he was out of his pants. Small circular burns healed to shiny welts dotted his thighs. She pulled her tank top over her head. Bruises painted her torso in faded purples and yellows. 

“Mateah,” he murmured, feeling oddly formal to use her name, “Can I be gentle?” He didn't need to, that wasn't what they usually thought of their arrangement. But he wanted it. Her face softened. 

“Yeah, Cullen.”

She trembled when he tried to find a place to touch that wasn't bruised. One of her legs didn't bend quite right at the knee, he let her find a comfortable position and arranged himself to suit her. Frankly, he was amazed he could get erect anymore between the fever and the exhaustion, but when he was with her he was hard as steel and she barely had to touch him. She wrapped her arms around his body. The noises that slipped from her were soft, whimpers and moans- Maker he'd never heard her moan and it drove him mad wanting to wrap her around him like a scarf. 

She said his name when she came. Trembles took her body, her fingers gripped his hair to press him closer, and she panted his name with a ragged little mewl. 

“Fuck you feel so good squeezing me like that,” he groaned into her neck. They rested body to body, more grinding than fucking. Her nails scored his back lightly, ran down to grab his ass with both hands and pull him deep inside her. He came undone with a soft curse and held as long as he could before he had to pull back, had to roll off her before the shaking got too bad. 

“Are you okay?” 

“No. But I will be.” He exhaled slowly. “I'm not taking lyrium anymore. I haven't since...it would have been just after our second or third meeting. I thought it was going suspiciously well. It was.” He rubbed his face. When he opened his eyes she looked down at him with an unreadable expression. She reached out to take his hand briefly. A pang went through his chest. 

"Will you tell me why?"

He did. Maker help him he told her everything. It was like some stopper in his gut came loose and he poured out years of fear and guilt that had rolled into a tight ball of PTSD he was going to carry for the rest of his life. She listened quietly. When he was finally quiet again she got up to get him another drink. There was a terrible understand when she touched his scars now, reverence and sadness.

They met almost weekly. Most times it was to fuck with renewed vigor. He hurt all over, but as the lyrium filtered out of his body he discovered the world was becoming sharper by lines and fragments. Including sex. Mateah came in with bruises and blood, and white-hot fury to plug into the willing outlet of his body. Twice, on a particularly bad day, he found himself in a hotel room just to curl on the bed and sob while she sat with him and rubbed his back. He knew it was going to hurt, but he never imagined that every nerve in his body could scream at once. He knew where he was, safe, miles away, but his mind went screaming back to the dank cell in the tower.

They were together one afternoon when they got a phone call almost simultaneously. She scrambled for the remote first. It didn't take more than that, every channel was running the same story. 

“You're shitting me,” Cullen mumbled. Divine Victoria was a mage, formerly First Enchanter Madame Vivienne, one of the very few who was almost universally loved. But she was a mage. She was a mage and the tension that had been boiling for so long was finally going to explode. He scrambled for his clothes. 

When he turned to make some explanation she was dressed as well. The same fear lived in her eyes. She crossed the room in three steps and kissed him hard, the first time she'd done something so intimate since their first night together. 

“Stay safe.”

“You too.”

Even in full riot gear, Cullen could feel the wallop from every spell that seemed to come from all directions in the air- hazy with tear gas. He moved with his shield in front of him as part of a shield wall that suppressed crowds. Some stray spell slipped through and one of the Templars went down. All hell broke loose. 

“Retain formation!” He fought to make himself heard over the din. “Templars cease fire!” He gave it up and ran to drag Samson off the mage he was beating into the pavement. Dead. Samson fought away from him and waded back into the fray. Gunshots fired somewhere nearby. Cullen fought his way towards the noise of screaming. He was bent over the woman, who shrieked past the hole in her belly, and then there was a muffled whump, the feedback from a bass speaker, and a fist made of pure, crackling fury rained down on them. 

He woke up in a hospital bed to shadows that swam into focus by degrees. Mia leaned forward with a gasp to take his hand. Her husband Eric stood behind her. And in the doorway, looking anxious but determined, was Mateah. 

“Oh get that stupid look off your face,” his sister laughed, though it cracked down the middle. “Do you know she's all over your phone? Maker, you move to a new city, get a girlfriend, stop taking lyrium, break your leg in a massive riot.”

“And I don't write to my loving sister about any of it.” Maker his throat hurt. But she smiled, even though she was crying.

“Guess what you'll be hearing about from now until the Fade takes us?” Eric laughed. “Glad you're alright.” 

Mateah inched into the room and he got a good look at her finally. 

“Andraste’s ass!” He struggled to sit up, wincing and cursing the whole way. Both women instinctively moved to hold him down. 

“Come on, I'm not that ugly.” She winced when she smiled and touched her split lip. “They tried to turn the hoses on us but someone shut the water for the city off. Didn't stop the batons, but for once the Seekers decided to do something useful. Things got shut down. Then your, um, your sister called me from the waiting room on your phone.” 

Mia interpreted her discomfort as something completely different and gave her a smile across the bed. 

“A person is a person is a person,” she assured her. “Have to admit I'm a little surprised, but you won't get any judgment from us. Eric has mages in his family too. As long as you make Cully happy.”

“Cully?” She suppressed a smile. 

“Mia!” He groaned. 

“Oh like she doesn't have some stupid pet name for you!” Mia leaned in and kissed his forehead. “Listen, go back to sleep. Get some rest okay? You make sure he sleeps.” She came around the bed and hugged Mateah. “Lovely to meet you. Get my number from Cullen, we'll have to do lunch sometime. Just us girls.”

“Nice to meet you. Sorry, Mia’s the hugger.” Eric offered her a handshake and a smile. He waved to Cullen as he escorted his wife out. The room seemed that much smaller less his sister’s bright presence. 

“Maker I'm sorry I didn't think to-” He stopped when she threw her arms around him. He hugged her back, surprised at the depth of his relief she was okay. “Hey. Hey, it's okay. It's… not over, but it'll get better.”

“Your family is really nice,” she whispered. Then she was up again to pace the room, though her face kept straying to his. He let her work her nerves off and took inventory of himself. He was hooked to three different machines, with the uncomfortable invasion of a catheter, and he ached all over. But it appeared his order for no lyrium had been obeyed, and all in all the leg suspended in a thick cast didn't hurt that much. Though that could have been the morphine talking. 

“Cullen-” She chewed her lip. 

“Mateah.”

“What if you like someone you aren't supposed to, and it won't go away?” For a moment she looked translucent, standing in the watery light from the window and gripping the bed so hard her knuckles were white. “What if you want to try something different? What do you do with that feeling?” 

“You swallow it and accept that you could never be what they need.” She closed her eyes. “Or…”

“Or?” She looked up at him.

“Or you take that flying leap. And hold their hand on the way down, and hope you land someplace soft at the bottom.” Mateah edged around the bed and held out her hand. He took it.


End file.
